Chelsea vs Crystal Palace match preview

TEAM NEWS

Blues midfielder Ross Barkley is set to return having been rested for Wednesday’s Carabao Cup win over Derby County. Chelsea’s Eden Hazard is expected to be fit to play some part after recovering from a back injury.

Wilfried Zaha missed Crystal Palace’s midweek defeat at Middlesbrough with a shoulder problem but is fit. But Connor Wickham joins Christian Benteke, Scott Dann and Joel Ward on the sidelines due to a thigh strain.

MOTD COMMENTATOR’S NOTES

@Wilsonfooty: On the face of it there seems little likelihood of Crystal Palace ending Chelsea’s unbeaten start to the Premier League season. Palace has been severely hampered by injuries to their strikers, but even at full strength, their squad looks short on real top-flight quality.

Wilfried Zaha has that in spades, of course, but would he regularly get in Chelsea’s side? Almost certainly not – and that’s the gulf Roy Hodgson has to try to bridge. But the beauty of football is that it does throw up surprises – and Palace’s wins at Chelsea in 2015 and 2017 certainly fall into that category.

After his time at Inter Milan, Roy Hodgson’s reputation among Italian coaches has remained high – and Maurizio Sarri will be more wary of Hodgson’s scheming than any single name on the Eagles’ teamsheet.

VIEW FROM THE DUGOUT

Chelsea head coach Maurizio Sarri on Eden Hazard’s fitness: “Yesterday Eden had a large part of training with the team. Maybe he will not be ready to play for 90 minutes at the moment because it was his first training in the last two weeks.

“But probably he will be able to play for 40, 45 minutes. So for us it’s important.”